THE CITY

30

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Journal of History of Ideas

Transcript of THE CITY

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THE CITY I. ANCIENT CITIES The religious and cosmic symbolism of the cityreaches back to the early stages of human culture. Itseems that in none of the great archaic cultures havecities been understood simply as settlements, arbitrarilyestablished at a certain place and in a given form; boththe placing and the shape of cities were conceived asrelated, in a hidden or manifested form, to the structureof the universe. The most common form of this sym-bolism is the belief that the cities have astral or divineprototypes, or even descend from heaven; sometimesthey were believed to have a relationship to the under-world. In both cases, however, they refer to an extra-terrestrial reality. Babylonian cities were believed to have their prototypes in the constellations: Sippar in Cancer, Ninevehin Ursa Major, Assur in Arcturus. Sennacherib hadNineveh built according to the “form... delineatedfrom distant ages by the writing of the heaven-of-stars.”This model, situated in a celestial region, antedates theterrestrial city. The terrestrial city, usually with thesanctuary at its center, is a copy of the divine model,executed according to the command of the gods. Thisis still reflected in the Wisdom of Solomon 9:8—“Thougavest command to build a sanctuary in thy holymountain, and an altar in the city of thy habitation,a copy of the holy tabernacle which thou preparedst

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aforehand from the beginning.” Similar ideas are found in India. Royal cities arebelieved to have been constructed after mythicalmodels. The relationship between model and copysometimes implies an additional meaning: in the ageof gold the Universal Sovereign dwelt in the celestialcity; the earthly king, residing in the terrestrial citybuilt after the celestial prototype, promises to revivethe golden age. Somewhat similar ideas are also found in Greekphilosophy. Plato's ideal city also has a celestial proto-type (Republic 592; cf. 500). The Platonic “Forms” arenot patterned after the planets, but they, too, aresituated in a supra-terrestrial, mythical region, andat times reference is made to astral bodies (Phaedrus). In the Western tradition, the best known exampleof a city with a celestial prototype is Jerusalem. Ac-cording to several sources it was created by God beforeit was built by men. The Syriac Apocalypse of BaruchII (4:2-7) suggests that the celestial Jerusalem, gravenby God's own hands, was shown to Adam before hesinned. The Heavenly Jerusalem inspired the Hebrewprophets and poets (e.g., Isaiah 60ff.; Tobit 13:16ff.).Ezekiel is transported to a high mountain to be shownby God the city of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 40:2). Accordingto the Apocalypse 21:2ff. the new Jerusalem actuallydescends from heaven. “I John saw the holy city, newJerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven,prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” In later

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Jewish traditions the divine city was actually the start-ing point of creation. According to Yoma, “the worldwas created beginning from Zion,” the holy city. Adam,too, was created and buried in Jerusalem, and there-fore, according to well-known Christian traditions, theblood of the crucified Christ could drip down on himand redeem him. The spot on which the city is placed may also havecosmic significance. In the Near East the city wassometimes believed to mark the meeting ground ofheaven, earth, and hell. Babylon was a Bab-ilani, a“gate of the gods,” for it was there that the godsdescended to earth. But it had also been built upon

Page 428, Volume 1 the “Gate of the Apsu”—Apsu designating the watersof chaos before Creation. In the Roman world, themundus—i.e., the trench dug around the place wherea city was to be founded—constitutes the point wherethe lower world and the terrestrial world meet.Macrobius (Saturnalia I, 16, 18) quotes Varro as sayingthat “when the mundus is open it is as if the gatesof the gloomy infernal gods were open.” Another common form of granting significance tothe city's location is to assume that it marks the centerof the world. In some Indian cities the foundation stoneis said to have been placed above the head of the snakewhich supports the world; in other words, it is placedexactly at the center of the world. The map of Babylon

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shows the city at the center of a vast circular territorybordered by a river, precisely as the Sumerians pic-tured Paradise. This belief persisted into later periods.It has rightly been said that the pilgrimages to holycities (Mecca, Jerusalem) are implied pilgrimages tothe center of the world (see M. Eliade). The shape of actual ancient cities (as excavated inarchaeological campaigns) does not always conform tothe vast body of religious symbolism. Some basic con-cepts of city planning go back to the third millenniumB.C. The earliest pattern of a planned city, the gridironscheme (i.e., straight parallel streets crossing otherstraight parallel streets at right angles) is found, in aslightly irregular form, in India (Mohenjo-Daro,roughly 2500 B.C.). This pattern probably emergedfrom the practice of “orientation,” i.e., the establishingof a connection between man-made structures andcelestial powers. The grid pattern is also found inMesopotamia, and in Egypt King Akhnaton followedit in building his capital (ca. 1370 B.C.). In Greece, ideas on town planning do not appearbefore the fifth century B.C. The acropolis, the originalnucleus of the Greek town, developed from a fortifiedplace of refuge, and usually consisted of an accumula-tion of irregularly shaped and dispersed volumes. Greekarchitectural thought was focused, as most scholarsagree, on the individual building rather than on thetown as a whole. Similarly Greek artists were moredeeply interested in the volume and structure of bodies

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than in the space surrounding the figures. The decisive step towards a regular layout of thecity as a whole is traditionally connected with Hip-podamus of Miletus (active ca. 470-430 B.C.), a half-legendary “Homer of city planning.” The “Hip-podamic system” is basically the gridiron scheme withparticular emphasis on space classification, and a ten-dency towards symmetry. Aristotle contrasts the “Hip-podamic system” distinctly with the archaic procedureof building without plan. Originally the system mayhave been influenced by the mathematical thought ofthe period, and perhaps also by some symbolic religioustraditions; in the diffusion of the system, however,economic advantages and practical hygienic consid-erations seem to have played a more important part.In Greece, no ritual laws seem to have existed for thefoundation and layout of new settlements. The Romans evinced a deeper concern for the cityas a whole, and made significant and lasting contri-butions to town planning. Roman towns developedmainly from the castrum, basically a gridiron patternsubdivided into four major parts by two main axes, thecardo and decumanus. A square was placed at thecrossing of the two axes. Both the major buildings andthe square proper had an axial location. In laying outmilitary settlements with permanent fortifications,which were established along the expanding frontiers,the Romans followed the same pattern (the so-calledcastra stativa). Another characteristic feature of the

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Roman town is that it was set off from the landscapesurrounding it (contrary to the transition from townto landscape in Greece). Although functional considerations clearly played animportant part in establishing this pattern, the townplan and the foundation of cities did not lose theirsymbolic significance. The historian Polybius and thegeographer Hyginus Gromaticus (early second centuryA.D.) describe the standard layout of the castrum town,but also discuss in detail the “orientation” of the townsand the consecration rites of newly established settle-ments. According to Pliny, measurements and propor-tions of the castrum were based on “sacred numbers,”but so far no conclusive archaeological evidence hassupported his statement. The major Roman contributions to city building, thefeeling for strict regularity, the organization of the cityin large areas, and the firm shaping of space (bestexpressed in the patterns of squares), declined with thedecline of the Empire. II. MEDIEVAL “ORGANIC” TOWN The medieval approach to the city, emerging in aperiod in which urban culture broke down, is complexand ambivalent. One of the characteristic features ofthe early medieval attitude is a disconnection betweenthe notions of the celestial and the terrestrial city.Probably the most explicit expression of this attitudeis to be found in Saint Augustine's famous work, TheCity of God. In this work, the image of the city be-

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comes highly metaphorical, the term denoting a com-munity rather than a material city. Even in his meta-phors Augustine rarely refers to the city plan, toarchitectural elements (walls, gates, squares, etc.), orto actual cities (with the exception of Rome andJerusalem, both of which assume a highly symbolic

Page 429, Volume 1 significance). The basis of “cities” is moral values ormetaphysical ideas: the foundation of the terrestrialcity is the “love of self” while the celestial city is basedon the “love of God” (XIV, 28; cf. XI, 1 and X, 25).The two cities, the terrestrial and the celestial, are notonly unrelated to each other, but there is a contra-diction between them. The City of God “is a pilgrimon the earth” (XVIII, 54); the citizen of the HeavenlyCity is “by grace a stranger below, and by grace acitizen above” (XV, 1); Cain is described (based onGenesis 4:17) as the founder of a terrestrial city, whileAbel, who was conceived as a prefiguration of Christ,“being a sojourner, built none” (XV, 1). Like the Near Eastern thinkers, Augustine conceivedof a celestial and a terrestrial city. But while in theNear East the city on earth is believed to be a copyof the one in heaven, Augustine sees the two as aliento each other. In moral terms they are even mutuallyexclusive: one belongs to either one or the other. Thusthe hostile attitude towards the (terrestrial) city, anattitude that was to play a major part in medieval

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thought, is already clearly articulated at this earlystage. This attitude may be understood as an expressionof a broad historical process which is probably alsoreflected in the development of the actual medievaltown, and in the iconography of the city in medievalart. It is significant that in a period as permeated bysymbolism as were the Middle Ages not much thoughtwas given to the symbolism of the city plan, as faras actual cities are concerned. The organization of thetown as a whole was, as a rule, neither understood nordesired by medieval builders. This lack of interest ledto the well-known irregular shapes of medieval towns.Even in cities which developed from Roman towns,the additions and changes which originated in theMiddle Ages were made without consideration for theoriginal Roman layout. The medieval town thus pro-vides an almost perfect example of the city that has“grown” versus the “planned” city. The narrow, wind-ing streets (ruelles, Gassen) of medieval towns andtheir beautiful but unpredictable vistas could be takenas an expression of “organic life,” as the writers of theromantic period, in fact, characterized medieval life. “Organic growth” as an overall characterization ofthe medieval town is not radically challenged by thefact that, especially in the thirteenth century, somenew cities (villes neuves) were built according to apreconceived plan, and do in fact display some regular

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features (e.g., Aigues-Mortes, founded in 1240 by SaintLouis; Montpazier, established in 1284 by Edward Iof England). These “new cities” remained exceptions. In contrast to the irregularity of actual medievaltowns, the innumerable representations of the“Heavenly Jerusalem” and of other holy cities in theart of the Middle Ages frequently show a regularityand symmetrical arrangement which strongly suggestthe image of a “planned” city. In early Christian rep-resentations (e.g., the fifth-century mosaics in SantaMaria Maggiore and in SS. Pudenziana), the HeavenlyJerusalem is reduced to a simple round wall, but inlater renderings (see Santa Cecilia) it becomes moreelaborate, sometimes adorned with towers, gables, andcolumns. However, in spite of the inclusion of suchactual architectural elements, the overall shape of thesacred city retains a remarkable regularity. Thus, ina ninth-century mosaic in San Marco in Venice, thecity of Bethlehem has a clear oval shape. Even whenrepresenting the earthly Jerusalem (representationswhich are certainly symbolic rather than documentaryrecords), the medieval artists tended towards clearlylaid out, regular forms. The iconography of the city in medieval art has notyet been systematically studied, but a review of therich material pertinent to this theme suggests that thehostile attitude towards the city has had a formativeinfluence on artistic imagery. Since the eleventh ortwelfth centuries the city is symbolically portrayed not

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only by architectural motifs (walls, gates, towers) butalso by secular, inherently vicious figures and scenes,considered typical of urban life. The view of the cityas a place of carnal temptation, debased entertainment,and avarice is visually portrayed by figures of jugglersand acrobats, loose women, misers, and, in the lateMiddle Ages, by scenes of gambling seen against anurban background. In medieval art, cities are ofteninhabited by demonic creatures. Such figures andscenes, sometimes appearing in the margins of sacredtexts, frequently anticipate the specific realism of aburgher art. III. RENAISSANCE IDEAS OF THE CITY The city, both as a social reality and as an architec-tural environment, played an important part inRenaissance thought and art. This may be partly ex-plained by the fact that Renaissance culture developedin cities, and was an almost completely urban phe-nomenon (even the newly discovered affection for therustic life of the villa attests to its basically urbancharacter). The acquaintance with ancient literarysources further intensified the interest in the city; thepolis became an object of study and imitation. Butalthough Renaissance authors often referred to thepolis, they usually attributed its characteristics to theItalian city-states of their own period. Thus LeonardoBruni, in his Laudatio Florentiae urbis as well as inother writings, describes Florence as a model of an

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Page 430, Volume 1 ideal city of justice, a city well-ordered, harmonious,beautiful, governed by taksis and kosmos. Bruni pro-claims that Florence is rational and functional in herinstitutions as well as in her architecture: “Nothing inher [Florence] is confused, nothing inconvenient,nothing without reason, nothing without foundation;all things have their place, not only definite but conve-nient and where they ought to be. Distinguished arethe offices, distinguished the judgements, distinguishedthe orders.” The architectural structure corresponds tothe rationality of the social and political structure. Thecity is built along a river, a module of urbanism isconsistently applied in her architecture. As in a polis,in the center of Florence are the Palazzo dei Signoriand the “Temple,” i.e., the Duomo. In this early stage we encounter already a character-istic feature of Renaissance urbanistic thought: theideal city can, at least in part, be identified with a realone. Historians have remarked that the fifteenth cen-tury, instead of producing utopias, gave rise to manylaudationes of actual cities, investing them with allthe virtues of utopian settlements. Venice and Florencewere described as embodiments of the political thoughtof the ancients. Probably the earliest expression of the Renaissancespirit in actual town planning is to be found in LeonBattista Alberti's De re aedificatoria, written between1450 and 1472. Alberti's civic convictions as well as

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his aesthetic and moral values are clearly reflected inhis treatise. The novelty of Alberti's method is thathe proposes a scheme for the building of an entiretown. Although he carefully considers the problems ofarchitecture for private and for ecclesiastical purposes,in his city plan every detail is subordinated to thedesign of the town as a whole. He strongly criticizesthe medieval habit of each family's building a palaceand a tower of its own without any consideration ofits neighbors, except that of rivalry (VIII, 5). Alberti stresses rational and “functional” elements.The site of the town must be healthful, in temperateclimate, conveniently placed for water supply, and easyto defend. Convenience and clarity are the ruling prin-ciples of his city plan. The town should be clearly laidout, and the main streets conveniently connected withthe bridges and gates; the streets should be wideenough not to be congested but not so wide as to betoo hot (IV, 5). The predominant aesthetic principleis that of symmetry, particularly visible in the relationof the shapes of the two rows of houses on both sidesof the street (VIII, 6). Although Alberti probably was the first modernauthor to articulate this attitude, similar tendencies canbe discerned in actual Italian architecture of his period.In the Piazza San Marco in Venice, a standard designhad been repeated around a square, and a similarprocedure can be found in the square in front of theSS. Annunziata in Florence. The same spirit also

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governs Pius II's plans for Pienza, and Nicholas V'sidea for linking Saint Peter's with the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (but in the latter project Alberti waspersonally involved). Closely related to Alberti, and probably influencedby him, is Filarete, whose Trattato di architettura wascomposed in 1460-64. It is written in a somewhatromantic form which, as scholars have noted, bringsit into close relation to the Hypnerotomachia polifili (written a few years later), and on ground of whichthe author has sometimes been called a “romantic.”Part of the treatise describes an imaginary city,Sforzinda. Filarete depicts the pageantry accompany-ing the founding of the city, the time of which is chosenaccording to astrological observation. But behind these“romantic” details there is a rational spirit whichreaches its clearest expression in the outlining of thetown plan. Filarete's ideal city has the overall shape of anoctagonal star with a round piazza at its center fromwhich a radial system of streets emerges. Filarete iswholeheartedly antimedieval, i.e., he is a radical criticof the city that has merely “grown.” In his treatisegreat emphasis is placed on regularity and on theimportance of having large squares. To the author'smind, however, the proposed city is no artificial struc-ture; Filarete believes that Sforzinda, the ville radieuse of the Renaissance, is “beautiful and good and perfectlyin accord with the natural order.” At the same time,

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Sforzinda is designed to meet the economic and socialneeds of the community. Moreover, the town plan ofSforzinda, although “perfectly in accord with the nat-ural order,” translates into stone the political and socialorder of the Italian city-states of the fifteenth century.Cosmic and religious symbolism appears in the centralbuildings of Sforzinda. The dome of the Cathedral iscovered by a mosaic representation of God in the formof a “resplendent sun that lights all the dome with itsrays of gold,” surrounded by a hierarchy of angels andsaints. On the pavement beneath the dome there is amap of “the lands and waters,” surrounded by thesymbols of the seasons and the elements (Book IX). In several of his notes Leonardo da Vinci (who inthis case was interested mainly in problems of engi-neering) sketches an interesting model of an ideal town:the healthful city is built near the seashore or along ariver (so that the dirt may be carried away by thewater), and is constructed on two planes connected toone another by stairs. On the upper level live the“gentlemen” (gli uomini gentili), on the lower levelthe poor (la poveraglia). Traffic and services are con-

Page 431, Volume 1 centrated on the lower plane. The aesthetic principlesgoverning the town plan are largely functional. Thebeauty of the city follows from its functional form andits mathematical foundations. Thus, a given proportionshould dictate the height of the houses and the width

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of the streets. At the same time, the city should bebuilt “according to human measure,” a well-knownconcept in the Renaissance which, in the context ofurban planning, is already found in Filarete's treatise,and was later fully expressed by Francesco di Giorgio. In sum, then, in fifteenth-century thought the idealcity is, first of all, a rational structure (and even instudying ancient models the rational elements areemphasized). Further, Quattrocento thought of themodel city, although containing some elements of cos-mic symbolism, is mainly concerned with problems ofcivil life, of how to make justice and wisdom workeffectively in the community and be clearly expressedby urban architecture. Finally, the ideal city of thefifteenth century is altogether on earth; it is neithermerged with, nor juxtaposed to, a “heavenly” city. In the sixteenth century urbanistic thought under-goes a significant transformation: different types ofsymbolism acquire a greater significance in the outlin-ing of the town plan than they had in the fifteenthcentury, and the ties between the ideal and the realcity are less close. Although this process takes placeunder the impact of the Counter-Reformation, thereis no return to medieval attitudes or models. Human-istic symbols prevail, but they are often transformed,given a new meaning and transplanted into a newrealm. The most original contribution of this periodis found in utopian town planning. The cities describedin the utopias are separated from real cities; they are

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not placed in heaven, but are located in distant regions.Geographical isolation is a persistent characteristic ofutopian descriptions. Civic functions, although de-scribed in detail, are usually less important than sym-bolic aspects in the outlining of the overall shape ofthe utopian town plan. The architecture usually is ofan abstract regularity. Utopian literature abounds in references to the idealtown, but the most detailed description of the townplan is given in Tommaso Campanella's City of theSun, written in 1602 and first published, in a Latinversion, in 1623. Although Campanella was a monktrained in the Dominican convent of Naples, hisutopian city (which he locates in a distant isle) isgoverned by a solar religion, and an astral cult performsin it. For both the town as a whole and the centralbuilding Campanella accepts the round form as themost perfect. The overall shape of the City of the Sunis round. The houses are arranged as circular walls,or giri, concentric with the central circle in which thetemple is located. The temple itself, Campanella says,“is perfectly round, free on all sides, but supportedby massive and elegant columns. This dome, anadmirable work, in the center or `pole' of the temple... has an opening in the middle directly above thesingle altar in the center.... On the altar is nothingbut two globes, of which the larger is a celestial, thesmaller a terrestrial one.” The round form, an old symbol of perfection, has

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an interesting history in utopian town planning, andfrequently occurs both in the form of a radiating centerand as a concentric arrangement. Its immediate sourcein Renaissance and baroque periods is the central planin religious architecture. Campanella's City of the Sun is an encyclopedicsystem with a “celestial” principle of organization. Onthe walls of the temple are depicted all the stars ofheaven with their relation to things below. The wallsof the houses bear depictions of mathematical figures,animals, and the different occupations of man; on theoutermost circle or wall are exhibited statues of greatmen, moral leaders, and founders of religions. The Cityof the Sun has indeed been understood (in accordancewith Campanella's intentions) as a “book” and has hada significant influence on pedagogic thought. Comen-ius' Orbis pictus is clearly patterned after Campanel-la's City of the Sun. Utopian thought in general has frequently been in-terpreted as implying a criticism of the society inwhich the utopia was written; what the author feelsas bad, or as missing, in his own social environmentis corrected, or supplied, in his utopia. This may alsohold true of the utopian town plan. The rigidly plannedand perfectly regular utopian town constitutes a criti-cism of the “naturally grown” cities in which theauthors lived. The narrow streets and confused ar-rangement of most medieval cities are criticized bydepicting their opposite as ideal and perfect. In this

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respect, utopian town planning represents anotherchapter in the history of the debate between theplanned and the grown city. The rational and easily comprehended plan of theimaginary town is also related to the authors' viewson the desirable structure of society as a whole. Partic-ularly in the case of Campanella, the city plan seemsto express the perfectly regulated and completelycentralized structure of society which he envisaged.The utopian town plan thus becomes a mirror imageof the utopian society. IV. MODERN CITY PLANNING The hectic social transformations and the rapid in-crease in urban population in modern times led to aheightened awareness of the social and economic

Page 432, Volume 1 problems of the city. There also emerged moral atti-tudes towards the urban settlement; it was criticized asa place of vice or hailed as the promise of a radiantfuture. Such thoughts and attitudes were expressed, andmodified, in actual town planning. The Enlightenment conceived of the city as a placeof virtue. Voltaire considered London, the typicalmodern city of his time, as the fostering mother ofsocial freedom and mobility as against the fixed hierar-chy in rural society. He noticed that even the aristoc-racy, traditionally connected with land, moved into thecities, bringing culture to the hitherto uncouth towns-

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men. Adam Smith, whose attitude to the city was moreambivalent than Voltaire's, also defended the city inrelationship to the country. But he did see some ofthe moral deficiencies of town life, particularly its“unnaturalness and dependence.” The nostalgia forrural life that was to characterize significant parts ofEnglish social thought of the nineteenth century isalready expressed by Adam Smith. In Germany, whereno large cities existed, the radical humanists exaltedthe communitarian ideal of the Greek city-state; butalso the medieval town appeared to the early romanticsas a culture-forming agent, and as the seat of virtueslike loyalty, honor, and simplicity. German thinkersof the early nineteenth century (Schiller, Fichte,Hölderlin) fused the characteristics of the Greek polisand the medieval town into the image of a burgher-cityas a model of an ethical community. In the town planning of the period the ideal of the“planned” city clearly prevailed, although in actualfact most cities were not built, or expanded, accordingto an overall plan. The emerging science of city plan-ning was challenged to provide rationally for thenecessities of a progressively more industrialized andmechanized society. This led to the conception thatthe city as a whole is “architecture.” Its spatial rela-tionships, its organization, and the forms and levels ofactivity in it require that a city be “built.” At a very early stage of the modern period thevisionary architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806)

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drew an elaborate plan for a “built” city. A project,begun in 1773 when he was asked to propose someimprovements in the residential quarters of a small,salt-producing town, continued all his life and resultedin the publication of L'Architecture considérée sous lerapport de l'art, des moeurs, et de la législation (1804).Ledoux planned five volumes, but completed only one.Filled with enthusiasm for J. J. Rousseau and the hopefor an improved social order, Ledoux envisioned hisideal city and drew plans for it, thereby boldly com-bining traditional patterns with original motifs. Theshape of his ideal town is a semicircle, with the factoryat its center and the important buildings on the rings.He thus anticipated both Ebenezer Howard's “gardencity” and Le Corbusier's cité radieuse. Ledoux's poeticgifts become particularly evident in his plans for indi-vidual buildings which, although designed in the formof simple geometric shapes, are permeated by a per-sonal, subjective symbolism. Ledoux's starting point was comparatively modern(the salt-producing plant of Chaux) but the solutionshe proposed place him within the tradition of utopiantown planning. Like Campanella and other authors ofutopias he emphasized the principle of the “plannedcity” and like them he preferred the round form. The vision of an ideal city continued to exercise itsfascination in the later nineteenth century, but moreattention had now to be paid to problems arising fromeconomic and technical conditions. One specific type

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of “built” city was proposed by Ebenezer Howard(1850-1928), a London architect who was deeply in-fluenced by an extended visit to the United States. Inorder to counteract the industrial congestion of moderncities (mainly in England), Howard evolved the con-cept of the garden city. He published his proposalsin his work Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Reform (1892), reprinted as Garden Cities of Tomorrow (1902). Howard envisaged a self-contained town of strictlypredetermined size (approximately 35,000 inhabitants)and plan. A well-balanced proportion between theurban area and agricultural land is essential. Any in-crease in population would be met by the creation ofsatellites, none nearer than four miles to the originalcity. The town plan of the garden city owes much toLedoux, and through him to the utopian tradition.Howard's imagined city is round; factories and housesare placed on belts of open land to combine town andcountry advantages. (In this particular feature Howardis perhaps preceded by some English and Americanindustrialists who moved their factories into the coun-try and established villages around them.) Of particularinterest in Howard's plan is the fact that he paid atten-tion to, and made provisions for, the specific joys ofurban life. Thus, in a wide glass arcade (significantlycalled “Crystal Palace”) near a large park, that kindof shopping is done “which requires the joy of deliber-ation and selection.” Howard's garden city allows largespace for nature (not more than one sixth of the general

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area should be covered by buildings), but it is a “built”town, with rigidly prescribed boulevards, distributionof buildings, etc. Even nature is planned, being funda-mentally recreation ground. Howard's close relationto what is known as the “English garden” is obvious. Town planning in the twentieth century, althoughit largely remains on paper, shows the profoundchanges in urbanistic thought. Most of the problemsof contemporary town planning were anticipated by

Page 433, Volume 1 Tony Garnier (1869-1914) in his first project for anindustrial town, designed in 1901-04. In his furtherprojects and commissions, and in his book Une citéindustrielle (1917) he discusses his plans in great detail.Clearly distinguishing between the different functionsof the city (living, work, leisure, education, traffic),Garnier undertakes to design a town which will fullyserve the needs of man in an industrial age. A boldinnovator in the use of materials and in the shape ofindividual buildings (preferring an ascetic geometry),he is also highly original in the disposition of the townas a whole: he separates vehicular and pedestriantraffic, designs a residential district without enclosedcourtyards but featuring continuous green areas, andplans a community center that anticipates contem-porary social centers. Another architect and town planner who anticipatedthe problems and shapes of the modern city, Antonio

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Sant' Elia (1880-1916), was sometimes associated withthe Futurists. Sant' Elia was greatly attracted by somefeatures of North American civilization, particularlyby the romantic aspects of its technical developmentand by the progressive expansion of an industrial me-tropolis. His grandiose project for a Città Nuova wasshown in Milan in 1914. In the catalogue to the exhibi-tion Sant' Elia published a manifesto on the need ofbreaking with the past. The “New City” should corre-spond to the mentality of men freed from the bondsof tradition and conventions. In his many drawings amajor theme is the architecture of a metropolis whichis the result of a technological and industrialized soci-ety. In designing towering buildings with exterior ele-vators, multi-level road bridges, and imaginary fac-tories (“monuments of the city of the future”), Sant'Elia raised these modern forms to the level of symbols. Garnier and Sant' Elia influenced Le Corbusier. LeCorbusier's work in urbanism consists of a largenumber of articles and books, and an impressive num-ber of projects for town planning. Only a small partof these projects has materialized (of particularimportance is the so-called Marseille Block of 1952).Le Corbusier took a decisive step beyond Garnier andSant' Elia. While Garnier still thought of small towns,limited to 35,000 inhabitants who are all engaged inindustry, and Sant' Elia's visions remained in bareoutline, Le Corbusier planned in detail for a city of3,000,000 inhabitants. From the outset he steered to-

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wards the problems of the “change-over town” (as helater called it), a metropolis with diverse functionswhich must be disentangled. A significant part of Le Corbusier's theoreticalinquiry into the urban problem is a critical apprecia-tion of cities of the past, particularly of the recent past,and of the solutions that have been proposed to thisproblem. Without ever allowing himself to be movedby “local color” or aestheticism, he denounced theblemishes of modern cities, that is, those aspects of thecity not well enough adapted to their various functions.He also rejected the utopian ideas of limiting the sizeof cities, and contrary to Frank Lloyd Wright, whoadvocated the diffusion of urban communities, wasopposed to horizontal spreading of the urban complex. Le Corbusier's work in urbanism bears the mark ofboth rationalism and a philosophical image of man.His rationalism leads to an analysis of the city's differ-ent functions, and to an allocation of distinct spacesto each function. The establishing of an orderly rela-tionship between traffic lanes, on the one hand, andliving and working zones, on the other, is of primaryimportance in this context. A famous result of thisapproach is Le Corbusier's famous hierarchy of roads(the 7 V system), starting with 1 V, an artery carryinginternational and inter-urban traffic, and ending with7 V, a fine capillary system in the zone reserved forchildren and schools. The analytical character isexpressed even in small details. “So great is Le Cor-

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busier's need for logical organization that, having tolay out the vast capital of Candigarh, he divides thevegetation to be used into six categories, each of whichreceives a precise function” (F. Choay, p. 16). Le Corbusier combines the analysis of the city'sfunctions with a philosophical image of man, for whomthe city is built. Although he emphasizes the specific-ally modern conditions of urban life (millions of inhab-itants in one metropolis, the decisive role of traffic)and proposes specifically modern solutions (the“Cartesian skyscraper,” the zoning of traffic), he isdeeply indebted to the humanistic tradition. Thethought of the utopians (especially of Charles Fourier)was of particularly great importance for his work.This is reflected even in his language: terms such as“radiant city,” “architecture of happiness” are bothfrequent in his writings and characteristic of his ideasand attitudes. In his work, both in individual buildings and in townplanning, he tries to achieve an “adaptation to thehuman scale”: in individual buildings by applying the“Modulor” (his own invention of a scale of architec-tural proportions related to the proportions of thehuman body), in the designing of the city as a wholeby assuming an hour of walking as the basic unit oftown planning. In his town planning he emphasizesthe city's center: on a small scale it is a communitycenter (as in St. Dié, 1945-46), on a monumental scaleit is a capitol (as in Candigarh, the metropolis of

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Punjab, begun in 1950). Under Le Corbusier's influencethe “Athens Charter” was published by the interna-tional architectural organization (CIAM) in 1933, set-

Page 434, Volume 1 ting out data and requirements connected with theplanning of modern cities under five headings (Dwell-ings, Recreation, Work, Transportation, HistoricBuildings). Le Corbusier's work makes it evident that in thetwentieth century, as in former periods, town planningis not only a highly complex technical task but involvesphilosophical ideas and the creation, or application,of traditional, symbolic forms. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. General. Sir Patrick Abercrombie, Town and CityPlanning (London, 1944). Joseph Gantner, Grundformen dereuropäischen Stadt (Vienna, 1928). Pierre Lavedan, Histoirede l'urbanisme, 2 vols. (Paris, 1926, 1941). Lewis Mumford,The Culture of Cities (New York, 1938); idem, The City inHistory: Its Origin, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (New York, 1961). Camillo Sitte, The Art of Building Cities (New York, 1945). Paul Zucker, Town and Square: From theAgora to the Village Green (New York, 1959). For bibliogra-phies, see: George C. Bestor and Holway R. Jones, CityPlanning: A Basic Bibliography of Sources and Trends (Sacramento, 1962); Philip Dawson and Sam B. Warner, Jr.,“A Selection of Works Relating to the History of Cities,”in Oscar Handlin and John Burchard, The Historian and

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the City (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), pp. 270-90. 2. Antiquity. India and the Near East: B. B. Dutt, TownPlanning in Ancient India (Calcutta and Simla, 1925); Mir-cea Eliade, “Centre du monde, temple, maison,” Le sym-bolisme cosmique des monuments religieux (Rome, 1957),pp. 57-82; Henri Frankfort, The Art and Architecture ofthe Ancient Orient (Baltimore, 1959), with a good bibliogra-phy; Francis John Haverfield, Ancient Town Planning (Oxford, 1913); Stuart Piggott, Some Ancient Cities of India (London, 1945); Earl Baldwin Smith, Egyptian Architectureas Cultural Expression (London, 1933). Greece: Fustel deCoulanges, Numa Denis: The Ancient City (New York, 1955);M. Erdmann, Zur Kunde der Hellenistischen Städtegrun-dungen (Strasbourg, 1879); Knud Fabricius, “Städtebau derBriechen,” in Pauly, Realencyclopädie der classischenAltertumswissenschaft, revised by Georg Wissowa (1929);A. H. M. Jones, The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian (Oxford, 1940); Roland Martin, L'urbanisme dans la Grèce (Paris, 1956). Rome: R. C. Bosanquet, “Greek and RomanTowns,” Town Planning Review (1914); William WardeFowler, Social Life in Rome at the Age of Cicero (London,1908); Léon Homo, Rome impériale et l'urbanisme dansl'antiquité (Paris, 1951); Guido Kaschnitz-Weinberg, Überdie Grundformen der Italisch-Römischen Struktur, 2 vols.(Munich, 1944, 1950). 3. The Middle Ages. R. Borrmann, “Vom Städtebau imislamischen Osten,” Städtebauliche Vorträge (1914). A. E.Brinckmann, Spätmittelalterliche Stadtanlagen in Süd-Frankreich (Berlin, 1910). Edith Ennen, Frühgeschichte der

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europäischen Stadt (Bonn, 1953). Karl Gruber, Die Gestaltder deutschen Stadt: Ihr Wandel aus der geistigen Ordnungder Zeiten (Munich, 1952). Christoph Klaiber, Die Grund rissbildung der deutschen Stadt im Mittelalter (Berlin, 1912).Achille Luchaire, Les communes françaises, 2nd ed. (Paris,1911). Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities (Princeton, 1925). EarlBaldwin Smith, Architectural Symbolism of Imperial Romeand the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1956); idem, La cittànell'alto medioèvo (Spoleto, 1959). 4. Renaissance and Utopian Town Planning. WolfgangBraunfels, Italienische Städtebaukunst (Berlin, 1950). AndréChastel, “Cités idéales: Marqueteurs italiens du XVe siècle,”L'oeil (Dec. 1957). Horst de la Croix, “Military Architectureand the Radial City Plan in Sixteenth Century Italy,” TheArt Bulletin, 42 (1960), 263-90. S. Lang, “The Ideal Cityfrom Plato to Howard,” Architectural Review, 112 (1952).Robert Klein, “L'urbanisme utopique de Filarete à ValentinAndreae,” Actes du Colloque international sur les utopiesà la Renaissance (Brussels, 1963), pp. 209-30. Georg Münter,Idealstädte: Ihre Geschichte vom 15.-17. Jahrhundert (Berlin,1957). Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Ageof Humanism (London, 1949). 5. Modern. Giulio C. Argan, “Il pensiero critico diAntonio Sant' Elia,” L'arte (Sept. 1930). Jean Badovici andAlbert Morance, L'oeuvre de Tony Garnier (Paris, 1938).Françoise Choay, Le Corbusier (New York, 1960). YvanChrist, Projets et divagations de Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (Paris, 1961). Gordon Cullen, Townscape (London, 1962).

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Frederick Gibberd, Town Design (London, 1953). RolandRainer, Städtebau und Wohnkultur (Tübingen, 1948). MOSHE BARASCH [See also Astrology v1-20 ; Enlightenment v2-10 ; Iconography v2-57 ; Organicism v3-52 ; Renaissance v4-18 v4-19 v4-20 v4-21 ; Romanticism in Literature v4-25 ; Technology v4-48 ; Utopia. v4-62 ]

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